Southern Baptists Endorse Effort to Overturn Same-Sex Marriage
Southern Baptists voted overwhelmingly on Tuesday to call for the overturning of Obergefell v. Hodges, the Supreme Court ruling that legalized same-sex marriage.
The denomination has long opposed gay marriage, but Tuesday was the first time its members have voted to work to legally end it. Expanding on conservatives' success in overturning Roe v. Wade in 2022, the vote signals growing evangelical ambitions to overturn the marriage ruling that was handed down 10 years ago this month.
'What we're trying to do is keep the conversation alive,' said Andrew Walker, an ethicist at a Southern Baptist seminary in Kentucky who wrote the resolution.
Mr. Walker leads the Southern Baptist committee that gathers proposals from Baptists around the country to be debated and put to a vote at the meeting. Baptists, he said, are taking the long view, inspired by the tactics of the anti-abortion movement. Roe v. Wade granted a constitutional right to abortion that stood for nearly 50 years before activists and legal strategists defeated it, powered by support from Christian conservatives.
The Baptists' vote against Obergefell took place at the end of the first day of the denomination's annual meeting, which is being held this year at a convention center in Dallas. Attracting thousands of pastors and church members from large and small congregations across the country, the meeting is being closely watched as a snapshot of evangelical sentiment on a range of political, theological and cultural issues.
The measure opposing same-sex marriage was part of a sweeping and unusually long resolution under the title, 'On Restoring Moral Clarity through God's Design for Gender, Marriage, and the Family.' It includes calls for defunding Planned Parenthood, for 'parental rights in education and healthcare,' and ensuring 'safety and fairness in female athletic competition,' a reference to the debate over transgender women in women's sports.
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